When someone asks who the first Georgetown basketball player who left early for pro basketball, it's not Allen Iverson. Decades before Iverson left for the NBA, junior guard Jim Kiernan opted for the pros after a productive but not overwhelming junior season.

The New York native served as a backup guard to George Pajak in the 1939-40 season, seeing action in only four games until late in the season, when Pajak injured his wrist and was out for the season. Kiernan came off the bench and averaged eight points a game in his final five games of the season, earning a starting role the following season.

Georgetown's 1940-41 season was its best in 20 years, and Kiernan was a big part of it. A 22 point effort versus Canisius was a career high, along with 17 against Syracuse and 15 against George Washington. Kiernan finished one point short of the team's scoring title, which went to junior center Bill Bornheimer.

Kiernan announced a move to the American Basketball League's Washington Brewers for the 1941-42 season, but his movement after that is cloudy. Kiernan did not appear on the Brewers' 1941-42 roster, and it is possible, though not confirmed, that he entered the armed services in World War II instead. In 1946-47, he played for the ABL franchises in Paterson NH and Wilmington DE, and was listed as a pitcher for the Bridgeport (CT) Bees of the Class B Colonial League.

Further whereabouts on Kiernan remain unknown.